1. Technical Field
Musical staff and notation system.
2. Background
The long-used Grand Staff and numerical notation systems. As these systems have been commonly used for a long time, their technical details can be found in all kinds of music theory books. This document will only describe the background technologies' problems and shortcomings, which the invention is intended to address.
I. The High Threshold of the Entrance to the World of Music
                a) Perhaps for the reason of saving printing space and paper (a few hundred years ago), each stave of 5 lines (of the Grand Staff) contains 14 to 15 standard pitches. For example, the G stave contains 9 named pitches and 5 varied pitches. The F stave contains 9 named pitches and 6 varied pitches. This is a highly condensed system. Squeezing so many pitches into such a narrow space makes remembering, recognizing the pitches noted on the stave a formidable task.        b) The use of constant or accidental sharp signs and flat signs (and cancellation signs) in the Grand Staff is an acquired ability that can only be obtained by hard memory and repeated practice (for a long time). Such complicated rules make it very difficult (and seriously limiting the chance) for people to fully master the Grand Staff.        c) Most of the music scores for piano pieces are written with/on Grand Staff. When learning to play the piano, in the absence of a music staff that is more and visually corresponding to the piano keyboard, the student must fully master the ability to read the Grand Staff. Given the difficulty to fully master the Grand Staff as elaborated in b) above, the Grand Staff becomes a necessary (but unnecessarily high) threshold for the piano students. The effort spent overcoming this threshold is irrelevant to the actual development of the student's musical talent and piano playing skills.        d) Because the piano keyboard has all the standard pitches in the entire music system, the teaching of music theory today is usually illustrated with it. But because most of the music pieces are written with the Grand Staff to date, and in the absence of a music staff that is more naturally and visually corresponding to the piano keyboard, the teaching materials and the teachers must spend a lot of words and efforts in teaching how all the standard pitches (as represented by all the keys on the piano keyboard) are recorded and recognized in the Grand Staff. Many students lose the chance of fully understanding the music theory because of their inability to fully master the Grand Staff.        
Summarizing above, the difficult Grand Staff is a high threshold today for the entrance to the world of music. The height of this threshold makes the process of entering the world of music a difficult and painful one, depriving many of the chance to enter, enjoy and excel in the world of music. It is an object of the present invention to significantly lower this threshold.
II. Pitch Notation or Numerical Notation?
All in this field know that the Grand Staff is based on pitch notation, i.e. the absolute height of all the standard pitches (e.g. C, D, E, F, G, A, B, etc.). It is more suitable for recording scores for musical instruments and playing the instruments by such scores. But it is not easy to sing. On the other hand, numerical notation is based on the relative heights of the notes in relation to the key-note of the music piece (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 of a major scale, 1 being the key-note). It is easier to sing, and helps critically in the understanding of parts of the music theory, such as scales and chords. But it is not suitable for recording the more complex scores for musical instruments.
Therefore, in order to master all aspects of music (including singing, instrument playing and music theory), the student of music must master both the Grand Staff and numerical notation, and the ability to translate one into another. This requires significant amount of time input and specialized training.
The background technologies cannot display the absolute and relative heights of the notes together. This makes it difficult for students to fully master the important aspects of music, and, therefore, seriously limiting the potential of development of many in the world of music. Solving this problem is another object of the present invention.
III. Difficulty to Obtain or Produce Music Scores on Different Keys
It is very easy to obtain the music score of numerical notation on different Keys. One simply has to equate the key-note to a new letter named pitch. For example, 1=D can be changed to 1=E to show that a D major Key is shifted to E major Key. 6=D can be changed to 6=E to show that a D minor Key is shifted to E minor Key. All the numerical notes remain unchanged.
However, most of the music pieces today are written with the Grand Staff. Producing scores on different Keys on the Grand Staff is a tedious, time/effort consuming, and error-prone process. Although one can do it by changing the key signatures and/or the clefs, the scores of shifted keys produced this way tend to be very difficult to read. Solving this problem of the background technology is another object of the present invention.